


as we are born

by AlliSquish



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6308542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlliSquish/pseuds/AlliSquish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How much would change if Han wasn't unfrozen at the end of Return of the Jedi? What would be the world that greeted him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	as we are born

Deep in the depths of Maz Kanata’s establishment, Rey saw boxes among boxes, clearly storage long forgotten if she was to judge by the layers of dust on them. One box, small and wooden and locked called to her, whispering her name, and yet another, long and tall laid propped against a wall, and something beckoned to her even stronger than the small box. Curiosity piqued, Rey moved to the longer box along the wall, sliding it down to open the top.

Typically, when scavenging , it was always best to take in whatever the ship was you were scavenging from, and take stock of anything that could hold useful items- large boxes covered in dust as this one was generally was a hit-or-miss. It could be filled with hidden treasures, or with junk someone long ago was too attached to ever trash it.

In the case of this particular box hidden away, it was something entirely different- it was a person, a man. A man encased in carbonite.

How someone could ever be encased in the stuff was beyond Rey; carbonite had long ago gone out of style. If it wasn’t for some of the materials she’d scavenged before, she wouldn’t have even recognized the stuff.

There was something along the sides of the carbonite, some older tech that Rey only seen once or twice before; yet, even as unfamiliar as it was, she watched as her fingers skipped along the sides, pushing buttons as if she knew them all too well, and waited.

-

He couldn’t breathe, _he couldn’t see he couldn’t hear!_ Han choked, coughed and sputtered; he could hear something, someone talking to him, but it sounded like Chewie, but worse and muffled. He was frozen to the bone, but he could feel someone’s fingertips brushing back his hair, running down his face.

“W-Who a-are you? W-Where am I?” Han forced the words to make it past his lips, but they came out weak and muffled; his hearing was better, his breathing only slightly and he still couldn’t see a damn thing! “Why is it so dark!?”

Whoever was holding him tried to reply, their voice soft, light and feminine, and he felt them move away; but then something happened, the air around him changed and there was shouting. He tried to pinpoint what was going on, but everything was as strange and dark as a starless sky.

“I-is that….is that really you?” This voice was different from the first, masculine, familiar and yet not, followed by course hands grabbing his shoulders, his hands, “Han, is that really you?”

“L-Lando?” Han ventured, squinting his eyes and praying for some vision. Still, the world was dark.

He could hear better now, and his breathing was fine; he could make out two female voices a little farther away; “Lando, what happened?”

“Too much,” Lando replied, helping Han to sit up, “You’ve been missing a long time, buddy.”

“What do you mean?”

But that was when the walls began to shake, things began to fall, and Lando pulled Han behind him, out of wherever they were and into the unknown.

It wasn’t until his vision finally cleared on the Falcon, and Chewie finally put him back down that he could actually look at Lando, this Lando who was so, so much older than any Lando Han had ever known and piece together what had happened.

Han had been frozen in carbonite, he knew, but then… They hadn’t rescued him. Leia tried, but by the time she had made it to Jabba’s, the Hut was already dead and buried, with a new gangster taking his place. Anything that had once belonged to the former leader had been either burned to ash or sent as gifts to the new leader’s chosen men. No one had been able to track him down; not even Luke with his new found Jedi powers. And then, there were reports of the Empire building another Death Star, and then… Han had disappeared just as much as Ben had, on that first ship, so long ago.

Luke had tried to find him still, and Leia as well but… there were other responsibilities, other battles to face. Luke started a school for new Jedi and…

“You and Leia?” Han asked, somewhere between heartbreak and incredulousness.

“It just… happened.” Lando was at a loss, and Han could see that older man knew how much it hurt both of them to admit it. “There was too much pain, even after.”

Their son (Han, they named their son Ben Han, there was too much there for him to ever process) betrayed his uncle, and then Luke just… disappeared.

“I was on a mission for the Rebels, when I ran into this old rust bucket,” Lando nodded to the ship around them, “These two kids on it, you met the boy,” The boy, Finn, looked as lost as ever, but safely out of sight piloting with Chewie, “and the girl, Rey- she’s the one that found you and woke you up.”

“And the one this Kylo Ren took back there?” Han asked, trying to follow everything but…

This had to be a nightmare from carbonite-related sickness. Had to; none of this made a lick of sense.

“Yes.”

-

They landed, and waiting for them was an older woman, just as painfully familiar and strange to Han as Lando had been.

“Leia?” The name was a whisper, a prayer, a plea, a beg for things to not be the way they so obviously were. The woman smiled, full of bittersweet saddness and joy, and Han’s heart cried out for what-ifs and could-have-beens and split in two.

He never left her side, both of them talking in whispers, and yet never about the here-and-now, never anything deep or what was next.

But… He couldn’t help staring at her, this woman who once was his entire world; who still was.

She must’ve been as sensitive as her brother, because just as Han was about to open his mouth to speak, she rested one fingertip against his mouth, smiled sadder than he had ever seen and said only two words; “I know.”

-

He was there when Leia asked Lando to bring back their son; it was an accident, he was just helping the kid pack supplies but… He left again on the Falcon with Lando, Finn and Chewie, going straight into the belly of the beast to save a girl (there was a deja vu there that he refused to touch); the same girl who had woken him up. He saw how desperate the boy, Finn, was to get this girl back and kept quiet. It made him feel so old, so old seeing this new generation, and seeing the old, seeing the reminders. They got the girl, alright, and she was a light unto herself; Han wanted to laugh when they found her. She was such a combination of both Luke and Leia that if Lando hadn’t told him his old buddies were siblings he would have sworn all the way to the Rim and back that she was their kid.

Then, setting charges with Lando and Chewie, Han did see Leia’s child- a boy who had put on an imitation of his grandfather’s armor, and slew his father with lies and bitterness.

He avoided Leia; how could he face her when she surely lost everything she held dear? Han knew he was a reminder of… things that would never be again.

He visited the kid with the girl, and left with her when the map was together. Han piloted her with Chewie and the two driods, BB-8 and R2D2, to the place where Luke was and just.

Held his breath like he was in that carbonite again, waiting for something that would never be again.


End file.
